Zendikar

A world of lethal risks and priceless rewards.

Damar

Description:

Personality: I’ve read every book in the world’s greatest libraries — or I like to boast that I have.
Bond: My life’s work is a series of tomes related to a specific field of lore: the Eldrazi.
Flaw: I am easily distracted by the promise of information.
Ideal: What is beautiful points us beyond itself toward what is true.

Bio:

Damar grew up in the prosperous city of Sea Gate, built atop a seawall more than 500 feet above the waves. His father and mother both thought their adventuring life too time-consuming to also be raising a child, so they sent their son away to apprentice with his uncle Lampie at the Lighthouse, a cylindrical tower that is the center of all learning in Tazeem. The walls there are lined with leather scrolls filled with maps, spells, archeological finds, lists of plant and animal classifications, and theoretical discussions of The Roil. Damar often boasts that he’s read every book in the library.

It was little wonder why or how Damar became a wizard himself, growing up among all the explorers and chroniclers at the Lighthouse. His best friend was a merfolk girl named Amberly, daughter of a cutter-trader (who scour the surface of Tazeem for fallen pathway stones to sell). As children they used to skip stones along the shores of Halimar, or craft gliders and race in the Umara River Gorge. Damar’s only other friend is his familiar, a rat named Elliott.

Everybody said that Amberly was a bad influence on Damar. Her chaotic nature rubbed off on him, and their adventures were always dangerous. One night, Damar accompanied Amberly to the reefyard, a place often avoided by sensible folk, where they witnessed a trio of vampires getting into a fight, one of whom was a prominent Sea Gate nobleman named Stelios. During the scuffle, Stelios was killed by one named Bartek. Damar and Amberly decided to keep quiet about this incident, and the name they heard, because they were afraid of the vampires murdering them.

The discovery that ultimately drove Damar away from his comfortable home in Sea Gate was not taken lightly by the rest of the sages at the Lighthouse. Ages ago, three alien beings of tremendous power were imprisoned on Zendikar in an effort to prevent them from consuming the entire multiverse, plane by plane. Through his research, Damar learned that, after centuries of being trapped in their magical prison, the Eldrazi were once again free. And to make matters worse, Damar was convinced that the answers lay somewhere in the vampire city of Malakir — which has been in ruins since the emergence of the Eldrazi.

Word of his discoveries got out, and soon those vampires who still serve their ancient masters the Eldrazi heard about Damar’s meddling into their business. The vampire Bartek himself returned to Sea Gate to silence the young wizard. During a late night of study, during which Amberly came to help out, Bartek stole into the Lighthouse and attacked! If Damar hadn’t utilized his scroll of daylight, he and his friend might have died that night. But the vampire was driven away, and Damar realized that staying here any longer would endanger everyone he cared about. So he packed up his explorer’s bag, spellbook and component pouch, took up his traveling staff, and left without telling anyone. He hoped Amberly would understand.

To this day, Damar is visibly shaken when somebody even mentions the word “vampire.”